MOVIE REVIEW: Prince Caspian
By: Will Manly
5/19/2008
Clive Staples Lewis was a born-again Christian. His Chronicles of Narnia have been described as allegorical to the Bible. There are definite, undeniable parallels.
But fans of the printed Chronicles of Narnia, those glorious books some of us read in fourth grade, might remember them in a slightly different light than what we've seen onscreen.
Yes, yes, all novels-turned-movies will invariably be altered to some degree. This is necessary and, in some instances, desirable.
But we take tremendous issue with some of the Christianity-related material in the film version of Prince Caspian. Not that we're anti-Christian. We're just a little disappointed in the way the filmmakers handled this piece.
Part of the brilliance of Lewis' book series was in the subtlety. The film version of Prince Caspian had none, and that made it a worse movie than it could have been.
But it was not a bad movie.
Those of us who remember reading and falling in love with The Chronicles of Narnia won't be disappointed in the way that glorious country/parallel world appears on screen.
Those of us who, as children, fell in love with The Chronicles of Narnia shouldn't take issue with the casting — Liam Neeson is too typecast but adequate as Aslan's voice, Ben Barnes is fine as Caspian and the Pevensie children are well portrayed by their respective actors.
Those of us who read and fell in love with The Chronicles of Narnia as children will not be disappointed in the maturity of Prince Caspian's battle scenes: In a war, good people kill bad people. They stab them with swords, throw them off castle towers, smash them in any way possible. It's not a happy occurrence but it happens. (For those keeping track at home, that was, indeed, a jab at the Harry Potter series.)
And for those of us who read the Chronicles of Narnia and are still head-over-heels in love with Reepicheep the mighty mouse — who, most assuredly, is among our favorite characters of all time — we won't be disappointed in the film's version. We are, however, disappointed that it will be two years until The Voyage of the Dawn Treader comes to the silver screen, whence we can see more of him.
We were, of course, severely disappointed in some features of Prince Caspian. For one, its centaurs were created lazily — they might have clopped right out of Hogwarts' Forbidden Forrest into Narnia's Western Wood. Narnia has been around for 50 years longer than Harry Potter, yet these magical creatures are almost forced as carbon copies of J.K. Rowling's version.
And the attack of the trees on the enemy forces might have been cut straight from the Ents' victory over Saruman. Yes, centaurs are always half-human, half-horses who are interested in astrology. And yes, there are only so many ways to portray trees at war. But in both cases, the filmmakers were not original enough. For those of us who, as children, read and fell fiercely in love with The Chronicles of Narnia, that laziness is hard to forgive.
But that laziness is one of the few problems with Prince Caspian. On the whole, it's a worthy effort.
